professional painting
by Gray Doll
Summary: In the absence of very hard cases to solve, agents need to find other ways to keep themselves occupied. "Did you see the turtleneck he was wearing the other day?" [the updated version]


**a.n./** _what is this?_ you might ask: the updated version of a story I once posted, "professional painting". jane suspects. lisbon is doubtful. red john devotes himself to the finer arts. cho appears out of nowhere and speaks through his muscles. jane suspects some more. _but why does it exist?_ you might ask: i do not know. too much coffee. watching creepy movies with art and redjohnesque people. oh well.

* * *

**professional painting**

In the absence of very hard cases that feel more like riddles only Patrick Jane can solve, Gale Bertram realizes that he needs to find new ways to keep his bored agents occupied; when he decides to establish an art class for all CBI agents, everyone cringes inwardly but no-one disagrees, because he's the boss, after all, and he has all the power in the world.

(Patrick Jane would of course object to this absurd idea and would find a way to make his boss's life miserable, or maybe he would jump with excitement at the endless possibilities of chaos ensuing. He would do one of those things, if he wasn't running rogue somewhere in Arizona, thinking he has a lead on Red John.)

**-;**

In the absence of interesting people to kill, with his old friend Patrick hunting shadows in the deserts and faking breakdowns, and because he has a very artistic nature, Red John (under the absolutely not glaring pseudonym Russel Blythe), decides to order antique mahogany from Avignon and to apply for the post of Master of the Arts at the CBI.

Gale's secretary is more than willing to give him an interview; charm, he has found over the years, is the key to everything when you're dealing with all kinds of women. The director himself, however, is a bit trickier to manage.

"I'm sorry, Mr Blythe," he says, leaning forward and folding his hands together on the desk in a gesture that is probably meant to assert his authority but makes him look slightly constipated instead. "But I'm afraid I'm going to have to see your qualifications. And, no offense, but to be honest with you, I have no idea why my secretary even gave you an interview without doing that herself first."

He tilts his head to the side. "I'm in a _suit_, Mr Bertram." He pauses. "I'm positively _ravishing_. I just get everyone to do whatever I want. The _how_ is irrelevant. Don't question it."

**-;**

"You've _got_ to be fucking kidding me," Rigsby says, later. He's already three shots down and counting, and the hidden bar under Lisbon's desk would be crying out in protest if it could. "I thought Bertram only meant this as a joke!"

Lisbon gestures for him to be quiet, but there really is no need; the four of them are, after all, the only ones left here at this hour. They always are; case breakthroughs always happen after midnight, after all.

"Seriously, though," she says after a while. "He did what_?"_ Lisbon widens her green eyes and well, if Jane was here he'd be thinking about white picket fences and St Bernards and bouncing babies, surely. "And where the hell is Jane, anyway?"

"This is ridiculous," Rigsby huffs, downing another shot. "And what is this new guy anyway? Are we _seriously_ going to attend art classes?"

Cho doesn't say anything, folds his arms tightly about his chest instead, and everyone knows what that means. It's Stoic Muscle Flexing 101; _thine bicep shalt speaketh for thee_.

VanPelt furrows her brow. "We have an art class?

**-;**

The night before the first class, Red John visits Rosalind, who isn't blind at all but it's all merely an act for the police, even though no-one ever bothered to spend more than a few minutes on her despite knowing she's been in a relationship with him for _years_.

"You've gone mad," she says, and brings a pink teacup to her lips. Bach's Prelude in C Major is playing somewhere in the background. It's all very elegant. "Madder than the CBI boss."

"A little positive reinforcement would be nice, Rosie," he says, shaking his head, and then gives a small twirl. "Well? What do you think?"

Rosalind's eyes widen, and the teacup nearly drops from her hand. "You can't be serious."

"I think it looks good." He furrows his brow in defense. "Besides, it's Gucci, love. It's new, it's expensive, it fits well— "

"It's a _turtleneck_."

He nods. "It is."

Rosalind's mouth opens and closes, and she shakes her head. "You can't go out like this!"

"It's _elegant_, Rosie."

"It's not elegant, it's- God, I don't even know what it is! You _cannot_ go out like this. Next thing I know you'll start smoking and wearing berets and bringing your laptop to Starbucks so that everyone knows you're writing a _god-awful_ novella— "

He rolls his eyes and rummages through her closet that the CBI agents haven't bothered to search, and that's a good thing because there are many of his own clothes he has forgotten in there as well. Once he finds it, he puts on the blazer and grins widely at her when he reappears in the living room.

"How about now?"

This time she does drop the teacup, and its content gets spilled all over the coffee table. He almost lets out a squeal, because he's the one who bought that table, and for God's sake, that was _mahogany_.

**-;**

For his first lesson, Red John shows a slideshow to the agents-slash-students, and ends up raging about post-impressionism.

"Just _look_ at this," he hisses, pointing a very mad hand at the Van Gogh on the screen. "It is absolutely ridiculous! No sense of style or line or form, no class, no meaning, and what is with all those yellows and blues? Who would ever mix all those colors together? It it tacky, to say the least_. _What happened to elegance, to beautiful portraits and beiges and reds, what the fuck _happened_?_"_

Lisbon stares. "Oh my _God_," she manages to utter. "Oh. My. God."

Rigsby has his face buried in his hands, and Cho is still as though carved from glass splinters, but his eyes look tortured.

VanPelt is horrified. "Why are we even here? Why is this even _happening_? Why did the director do this? Why-"

"This is _unbelievable_," Blythe carries on. "Perhaps the only good thing this ginger fuck ever did was shoot off his ear. Just look at this! _Look at this_! This is _not_ how you _paint._"

"Okay, now this is just embarrassing," Jane says quietly, and everyone around him (that is Lisbon, Rigsby and VanPelt) jumps, starts, and stares.

Lisbon's eyes widen in shock, then widen even more in denial, then narrow in frustration. "Where did you even come from?"

Jane shrugs, like he's only been two blocks away to buy smoke.

But Lisbon carries on. "I can't believe you have the nerve to show up like that after months, like nothing ever happened, I thought we were partners, and friends, and if you think I'm going to forgive you this time you're-"

Jane lifts a finger to hush her. "Shh, Lisbon, you don't want professor McCrazy to start yelling at you. Let him take it out on Van Gogh."

Lisbon huffs and puffs, shaking her head, and Jane grins because that's just what Jane does. "But seriously," he says after a while, "this _is_ embarrassing. I can't believe I've spent a decade trying to out-manoeuvre this guy."

VanPelt furrows her brow. "What do you mean?"

Jane just shrugs. "Oh, nothing, really. At this point I'm just suspecting."

"Suspecting what?"

But Jane lifts up a finger again, because Mr Blythe is now pacing furiously up and down the room, glaring at the agents-slash-students and the painting on the screen in turn. "If I see any of you doing anything like this abomination in my class, I'll-"

**-;**

Gale Bertram frowns, setting down his papers. "'I'll cut you up so badly you won't have a fucking face once I'm done with you.' _Mr Blythe_."

Red John tilts his head to the side, folding his hands together on his lap and looking positively angelic. "Yes?"

The director clears his throat, and repeats it. "'_I'll cut you up so badly you won't have a fucking face once I'm done with you_.'"

"Yes," Red John says, smiling a little. Such a mess, these lowly agents. Getting all bothered with the littlest of threats. He much prefers Patrick, who simply waves important people's death threats away. "It is an expression of polite displeasure. In Georgian English. You'll be interested to know that William Blake, the famous poet-"

"Mr Blake used this phrase in his poems, Mr Blythe?"

Red John's smile grows slightly tight, because hell, this is harder than charming a woman. And he does _not_ appreciate being interrupted while talking. Especially while talking about Blake. "Well, not exactly, director, but-"

"This will be all, Mr Blythe. Make sure this never happens again."

The same night, one of his cronies huffs and puffs as he's shoving the director's dead body into a van, his hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. "I don't get it, boss," he chokes out. "Why not cut him up and do your smiley thing instead of... this?"

"I do not pay you to ask questions," Red John says with all the authority he can muster, and it surely is a lot of authority. He leaves, and pays his minion no more attention – he has a class next, after all.

The goon shakes his head, thinking that he doesn't get paid at all.

**-;**

"Okay, where the hell is Bertram?" Teresa asks him two days later, looking up at him with her green eyes blazing.

"He's been, ah, temporarily misplaced," he replies and gives her an easy grin, and is more than startled to realize that she doesn't seem charmed at all.

**-;**

Two weeks into his teaching streak, he comes home to a very angry Rosalind, a frowning Oscar and a very serious-looking Bret Stiles waiting for him in the living room.

"My dear friend," Bret says, "this is an intervention."

Rosalind nods her head enthusiastically, red curls bouncing. "And the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. A very serious one."

"That," Bret gestures to his outfit, "is an abomination. I cannot fathom what persuaded you to don this monstrosity."

"My hands are clean in this," Rosalind says, crossing her legs. "This is ridiculous. Worse than your mid-life crisis over Jane going all mean about you on TV. Just look at him, Mr Stiles — he's wearing a _turtleneck_ and teaching CBI agents how to _finger paint._"

Bret chokes a little at that, but restores his very admonishing, very serious facade in the blink of an eye. "Your _friends,_" he says pointedly, "are going to look at you and cringe, _Roy_. How do you think they will react when they find out their Messiah is dressing like a Starbucks squatter and teaching art classes? Have you given any thought to the consequences of your actions, Roy? Have you? Well? Have you?"

"Long story short," Oscar says, tilting his head, "You look like a twat, boss. Not gonna lie — this coming from the bottom of my heart out of undying love for you." He shrugs. "I killed a man in Vegas once for wearing that very outfit."

Rosalind sighs. "You know, darling, this is just wrong. I feel like I'm in a relationship with a girl in college. It won't be long before you start taking me out to Communist gatherings and trying to persuade me to experiment with lesbianism. And the hemp can't be very ar away, either."

"I'm doing big things with the students!" Red John shouts. "I'm changing their lives! I'm like Antonio Banderas in that dancing movie! I am changing lives with the power of learning!"

"I found out, just this morning, that you stashed an agent in the janitor's closet for using impasto," Bret says in a hard voice, and Red John rolls his eyes.

"Do you think me that cruel, old friend? It was the storage room."

Rosalind throws her hands up in the air. "Roy, darling, this has to _stop_."

"But the students-"

"They are _CBI agents."_

Red John makes a very offended sound. "You just don't appreciate anything."

**-;**

An hour past midnight, Rosalind meets Patrick Jane in a bar, and the latter seems oddly unsurprised to see her walking and seeing and doing everything just fine.

"You have to stop this," she tells him, her voice borderline hysterical. "I've tried _everything_."

Jane blinks once, and nods, his expression suddenly solemn and slightly crazy, like switching masks. This is Red John related, after all. "So that means he's Re-"

"I don't care what it means, just get him out of the CBI's art classes," Rosalind says, clutching his hand. "Last night he wouldn't join me in bed because he wanted to plan his course. He wanted to plan his course." She sounds and looks desperate. "_He wouldn't join me in bed_ because he wanted to _plan his course_."

Jane rolls his eyes, schooling his expression back to carefree and maybe even a little mocking. Not Red John related any more. "Yeah, I got it the first two times."

"So you'll help?" Rosalind whispers, and only then does she seem to realize that, God, her cover's been blown. "Uh-"

"It's okay," Jane says, waving his hand dismissively. "I already knew. Well, _suspected_, but-"

"Are you going to put me in jail?" She looks positively horrified.

"My priority at the moment is to get a crazed serial killer away from the CBI buildings, find a way to annul the art classes, and kill the aforementioned serial killer." He forces a small smile. "And, honestly, 'thank you for your help' doesn't even begin to describe my gratitude."

Rosalind nods, gives a wobbly smile, leaves the bar, and is never heard of again.

**-;**

("Not even a private institution," Bret murmurs to himself. "In which students are taught the finer details of using silverware, and learn Latin, but rather—"

Oscar's nose is scrunched up. "Holy shit. I'd never seen the CBI HQ from the inside – this place looks like a fucking retirement home.)

Three weeks after Red John got the job, Bret Stiles persuades him to follow him down the very menacing dungeons of Visualize, until they reach the one with a crying girl chained to the wall.

"Look what my men got for you!" Bret says, trying very hard to make his voice bright and cheery. "They didn't even sedate her! Go on! Fetch!"

He doesn't even look at the girl. "What should we study for the second semester, Bret? Abstractionism or should I just keep it in the Renaissance?"

Bret stares, his mouth opening and closing without making a sound.

**-;**

"This just can't keep happening," Lisbon says, despairing, watching as Mr Blythe screams out of his mind at a rookie who _dared_ to paint the foreground before the back. He looks as though he's about to take out a machine gun and blow her head off.

"I expressly said not to do that!" he rages. "Have you listened to a word I've said? _Have you?_ I can't believe this trite rubbish — I said I wanted Raphael, not this! If I wanted Lucien Freud, I would have said so! _I would have fucking well said_—"

He breaks off, looks across the room. There is a suspiciously vaginal depiction of a five-petal flower on his desk.

"I _said_ no contemporaries!" he snarls. "Who in hell did Georgia O'Keefe?"

"You have to admit though," Jane says, leaning back in his chair, "fear does increase some of the students' acumen. Did you know that-"

"We're not students, Jane," Lisbon growls. "We're agents of the law, and this is beyond embarrassing! If Bertram was here, I'd-"

"Well, he isn't, and we're gonna have to figure this out on our own, right?"

"Why are we even here?" VanPelt sighs, running her hands through her hair. "Why don't we just arrest the guy? You know, for attacking officers of the law? I mean, this _can_ be called harassment, right?"

Jane shakes his head. "It's sad, really. My arch-nemesis has been reduced to a faux-elitist hipster teaching people how to paint. Some days I just can't find it in me to try and kill him. Did you see the turtleneck he was wearing the other day?"

Lisbon's eyes widen. "What do you mean-"

"Uh, that he was wearing a turtleneck?"

"_About killing him_." There's a very angry vein pumping at Lisbon's neck, and Jane suddenly looks wary.

"Oh, nothing, nothing. Back to your drawing, partner!"

"Jane." Lisbon's expression is caught between furious and terrified. Maybe a dash of weariness in there, too. "Please do not tell me you think he is Red John."

"I will not tell you that if it's not what you want to hear-"

"_Jane_."

The consultant throws his hands up in the air in a 'don't shoot' motion. "Lisbon, I'm only _suspecting_-"

"Jane!"

"Alright fine." He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I think he's Red John."

Lisbon frowns a little. Then swallows. Then shakes her head. Frowns again. "But... But he's... I mean, he's... He's... He's not even-"

"Yeah. I know. But, I suppose it could be worse," Jane shrugs. "I mean, he could be terrifying and wreaking havoc and killing people and stuff, you know."

"He was," Cho replies, out of nowhere. "He kind of still is. The CBI had to take money out of its computers fund to hire a therapist."

**-;**

It doesn't turn out so well when they find out who the new therapist is.

"If you can't beat him, join him," Jane shrugs when they show up in his office. "I've just discovered that philosophy is extremely effective. Almost like reverse psychology. Tried it once in Vegas - hopefully now it'll work."

He turns to the agent sitting on his couch. "You need to calm down and see the bright side of things, Mary, alright? Some of us have real problems to deal with."

The young woman bursts into tears. Jane frowns, says, "Shoo."

Outside, Cho says, quite succinctly, "Well, fuck."

**-;**

Things do change, though, that very same day.

"Teresa, dear!" Mr Blythe's voice makes Lisbon go completely still, her fingers clutching her desk so hard it looks like the wood might break. "We're doing life drawing tomorrow! Do you mind modeling?"

And the thought of Teresa Lisbon nude on a platform in front of a group of agents and Red John for academic purposes, is what finally makes Jane go all angry-birds on him and finally kill him.

After that, the CBI agents made sure to never run out of impossible-to-solve-without-Jane cases again.

**FIN**

* * *

**a.n.2/ **so yeah. thank you for reading this little piece of absurdity, and thank you to everyone who has ever reviewed/favorited/followed my stories. it means so, so much to me. hopefully i'll be updating "hold my hand forever" soon.

you can follow/stalk me on (my newly made) tumblr: it's sinsualite. planning to have updates on fics there.**  
**


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